


Between the Lines

by gunpowderlatte



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 04:09:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2799029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunpowderlatte/pseuds/gunpowderlatte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi reaches for its hand, pressing his fingertips into the palm of it, and notices how it doesn't blanch under the pressure. He finally says, “His name is Erwin.” (Android!AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Lines

-

“I read a book today.”

His voice is hoarse when it resonates off the walls of his room. He stares up at his ceiling, tinted orange from the streetlights, and feels his eyelids scratch dryly as he blinks.

“It was about a war,” he continues. “Over five centuries long. Can you believe it?”

Outside he hears the early birds waking. He furrows his brows.

“I spent all day reading and guess what? The good guys didn’t even win in the end.”

Levi turns over in his bed, closes his eyes and waits for the sun to rise.

-

It’s summertime when he finds dust bunnies in one corner of his home. They glint in the afternoon sunlight, unwelcomed guests to an otherwise tidy house. He stares at it balefully before taking a dust mop to it.

His robot vacuum, Nifa, chirps sheepishly below him.

-

Hange isn’t a friend; not exactly. But they are often the only people here at Mitras, a small run-down bookstore forgotten amongst skyscrapers and advancing technology. She comes here to work; Levi, to escape from it. Over the past few years, they’ve made small talk and still don’t know much about each other, but she brings him tea occasionally in exchange for light conversation and Levi guesses he’s okay with that.

Today she brings him tea from the corner shop a few blocks down. He isn’t in a chatty mood but he reluctantly accepts the steaming paper cup in her hand.

She says, “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yeah, I’ve been busy,” he replies and half-listens to her rattle on about her latest theory.

When Hange asks him about his week, he doesn’t have much to say so he brings up Nifa instead.

“She’s usually good, but I think she’s rusting out,” Levi admits solemnly. “She’s been missing some spots.”

Hange makes a sympathetic noise. “Nifa is extremely outdated technology. Have you thought of getting an android?”

This isn’t the first time she’s bringing it up—she works for an android corporation after all.

He shakes his head and replies, “I’m still not too fond of sharing my space.”

“Well, think about it,” she says gently.

“I don’t know,” Levi answers absently. He takes a sip of cold tea. “Maybe.”

-

The owner’s compatibility test consists of over a hundred questions asking him to range various emotions and scenarios from ‘Least Likely’ to ‘Most Likely’.

Levi stares at the screen for about thirty seconds before punching in ‘Neutral’ for all of them and calling it a day.

-

“Congrats, you’ve been approved,” Hange tells him a month later at Mitras.

“No way,” Levi says in disbelief and accepts the appointment confirmation in her hands.

-

In the book, _The Battle for Maria_ , many characters came and went during the half-millenium war. But there was one character that stood out in particular for Levi—a certain blonde, blue-eyed commander whose passion for humanity’s victory was often mistaken for ruthlessness. His reign was a pivotal turning point in the book, even though it was the bloodiest one of them all.

And while he doesn’t like mulling over these kinds of thoughts, Levi does find it ironic—that he would choose a character with so much heart to be what his android is modeled after.

“He needs a name, Levi,” Dr. Grisha Jaeger prompts again kindly, bringing him back to the subject.

Levi reaches for its hand, pressing his fingertips into the palm of it, and notices how it doesn’t blanch under the pressure. He finally says, “His name is Erwin.”

As Grisha types away at his screen, Levi observes mutely as his android literally comes to life.

“Erwin,” Grisha calls. “Meet your owner, Levi.”

Their eyes meet, blue upon gray, and Levi’s name is the first thing Erwin says. There should be something profound—something monumental—about that moment, but instead, Levi is distracted by the smooth baritone of Erwin’s voice, and how so very real it sounds to his ears.

-

Levi sits stone still on his bed and watches Erwin familiarize himself to the small spaces of his studio. He realizes belatedly that maybe he should be the one giving his new robot a detailed tour but is mostly stuck on the fact that he has no clue what comes after this part. Meanwhile, Nifa makes stressed noises as she spins in circles in her corner of the living room.

“What kind of tasks would you like for me to do?”

The voice startles Levi after half an hour of near silence. He composes himself before replying briskly, “I don’t know. What can you do?”

Erwin tilts his head slightly then, one full eyebrow lifted further than the other. His voice sounds amused as he says, “Don’t you know how androids work, Levi? We do everything.”

The faint smile on Erwin’s lips is so disconcerting that Levi finds himself looking away.

 

Eventually, he settles on making Erwin clean up around the house first but it’s clear Nifa is having a hard time adjusting to their new housemate. She repeatedly slams into Erwin’s ankle as if it would succeed in making him go away, but Erwin just follows her dutifully and tidies up where she can’t reach.

“I wish you came with a manual or something,” Levi mutters under his breath.

Apparently Erwin hears this because he turns around and asks, “Would you like me to recite the manual to you?”

At a loss of what else to say, he reluctantly agrees. “Sure.”

“My model number is IS-7242,” Erwin begins as he resumes trailing after Nifa. “I was activated at S.K. Headquarters on October 14th, 2176. You gave me the name, ‘Erwin’. I am programmed with over 300 specific skill sets but am capable of learning new ones. I do not need to eat or sleep but will clean myself when necessary. I will, however, require a bi-annual maintenance tune-up which can be done by you or a specialist if you aren’t comfortable doing it yourself. Would you like for me to continue?”

Levi stares at Nifa whining by Erwin’s feet. He feels dizzy. “No, I’m okay. Thanks…”

 

Later that night, Levi pushes his couch to one corner of the living area, across from his bed. It’s not the most ideal placement as this is basically sharing a room at night, but he figures his android will need some place to rest and recharge too. So far, he’s not too thrilled about being an owner.

“I can just stand if you’d prefer,” Erwin comments, in which Levi replies, “I’d rather you not to be honest.” And that was that.

He’s covering the couch with an old throw when Erwin asks him a question.

“Who was I named after?”

“No one I knew,” Levi responds and hands him a pillow.

-

Red is a familiar color to Levi.

He isn’t sure why but he thinks back to the moment at the lab; when he pressed into Erwin’s resilient skin; how it didn’t color under his touch.

He wonders if he were to taste the circuits of an android, if it would be metallic, like blood.

-

On the night of his birthday, Levi comes home with a bag full of groceries.

He asks Erwin, “You said you can cook anything, right?”

Erwin nods. “Is there something you’d like for me to cook?”

After a moment of hesitation, Levi goes to his nightstand drawer and rummages through it. He digs out a wrinkled but neatly folded piece of loose leaf paper and hands it to Erwin. He quietly asks him, “Can you make this?”

Erwin unfolds the paper, revealing a lengthy handwritten recipe. He reads out loud, “Isabel’s Curry Rice.”

“She used to make it for me all the time,” Levi finds himself explaining. “I’m not that great of a cook so it never comes out right when I try to make it.”

“Who is Isabel?”

“She was my sister.”

Erwin is quiet as he skims the recipe and hands it back to Levi.

“I’ll try my best then,” he says gently, and Levi isn’t sure what he feels about that.

An hour later, Levi anxiously digs into a plate of curry rice.

He pauses mid-chew.

“How is it?” Erwin asks after Levi swallows.

“It’s pretty close, thank you,” but his voice is shaky as he replies.

-

The fireworks help cover the noises today.

Dinner is left cold on the kitchen counter but it doesn’t matter to Levi because it isn’t his.

He returns home well after midnight and finds Erwin lying on the couch. His feet dangles off the edge of it. He looks like he’s sleeping except for the thin black wire extending from the wall into the nape of his neck.

Levi stands there for a long time, simply watching Erwin in all the ways he doesn’t breathe, and suddenly finds himself looking into blue eyes.

“You’re back,” Erwin says, rubbing his eyes as if he had actually been sleeping.

“Yeah,” Levi says. After a pause, he adds, “Happy new year.”

Erwin smiles. “Happy new year.”

Outside, the fireworks have ended and the world moves on.

-

“You’ve lost weight,” is the first thing Erwin tells him when Levi walks in. He hasn’t seen Levi in over a week.

It’s reheated pasta for dinner and the rouge color of the sauce makes Levi’s stomach churn. He pokes around his plate for a bit before setting down his fork. The sound cuts through the heavy silence.

“I’m sorry. I’m…” and he trails off, strangely unable to admit what’s troubling him.

“Are you alright?” Erwin’s voice is as concerned as an android can get and Levi almost laughs.

“I’m fine. Just tired,” he eventually replies and lets Erwin clean up for the night.

He’s in bed when he feels the mattress dip by his feet. He looks up to see Erwin sitting on one corner of it, a human sized silhouette in the dark.

Unsettled, Levi asks, “Yes?”

“I’ve realized that I don’t know much about you,” Erwin says, looking at the wall opposite of him. His hands are clasped in front of him, resting between his thighs. “Usually when an android is activated, we are given a set of values to make us more compatible with our human.”

After a moment of confusion, Levi recalls the application process. “If you’re talking about the compatibility form, I think Hange pulled some strings. So I don’t know what to tell you.”

Erwin looks conflicted then. “To better serve you, I should know certain things about—”

“Why do you need to know anything about me?” Levi snaps, suddenly irritated. “You’re nothing but a robot, Erwin.” He immediately regrets saying it but Erwin doesn’t flinch. He quietly adds, “Can’t I just tell you what to do and you can do them for me?”

There’s a pause before Erwin answers. “If that’s what you’d like, of course.”

“It is,” Levi says, feeling something bitter bubble up inside him. “Now, goodnight.”

He lies back down, feeling the bed shift as Erwin gets up. In his peripherals, he sees Erwin turning back to look at him.

“Goodnight, Levi.”

Levi stirs awake from a restless slumber later into the night. He turns over in his bed, his heart beating painfully as it fights off the remnants of a nightmare. He looks enviously at Erwin across from him, where he lies on the couch with his eyes shut and his chest unmoving; motionless and still—passing time through a dreamless state.

-

“Whoa, you’re buying all those?”

Levi looks down at the pile of clearance books on the front counter.

“They are for Erwin.” He frowns, feeling uncomfortable talking about it. “I’m trying to be a better owner.”

Shifting her heavy research books to one side, Hange asks him, “What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know,” Levi answers reluctantly. “I think he’s unhappy. I leave him home alone often with nothing to do, so I thought maybe he would like something to read while I’m gone.”

“That’s really kind of you, Levi,” she says sincerely. “I’m sure he would like that.”

Levi isn’t sure though and he finds himself wanting to ask if he’s really meant to be an owner, but the question lingers on the tip of his tongue, hanging there long after he leaves the bookstore.

-

It’s past four in the morning when Levi finally cracks.

“So I read this book about giant humans trying to overthrow the world. It was strange.” As an afterthought, he adds, “You would have liked it.”

He turns over in his bed and rubs at his eyes, burning from four days without sleep.

“I’m so tired,” he complains to nobody.

“Then why don’t you go to sleep?”

For a wild terrifying moment, Levi forgets that he doesn’t live alone anymore until he sees Erwin blinking innocently from across the room, his eyes flashing unnaturally in the dim lighting.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Levi barks, heart racing.

Raising an eyebrow, Erwin asks, “Were you not just speaking to me?”

“I was not,” Levi replies tersely and throws his covers over his head, feeling embarrassed.

“Well, regardless of who you were talking to, I did find that book quite thought-provoking.” Erwin’s voice is muffled through the covers. “We can talk about it if you don’t want to sleep.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to sleep—I can’t,” Levi says. He pulls down his covers, frustrated. “It happens after some jobs, that’s all.” It isn’t something he meant to admit to Erwin but it spills out before he can catch himself.

“Jobs,” Erwin wonders aloud. “So what is it that you do exactly?”

And honestly, Levi wants nothing more than for Erwin to shut up tonight so he just tells him that he works at Mitras.

“It’s one of the only standing bookstores in this city,” he elaborates, unrehearsed. “I go on outreach work to archive any remaining printed works in this generation. Depending where I go, I sometimes get jet lag and can’t sleep. Does that answer your question?”

Erwin tilts his head slightly, in the way he does so often whenever he’s curious about something.

“Is that where you get all those books for me? Mitras?”

At Levi’s nod, Erwin simply says, “I see. Well, thank you, Levi.”

Gratefully, the conversation ends there.

But not even five minutes later, Erwin speaks up again.

“Do you still want to talk about the book?”

With a sigh of resignation, Levi turns to his side.

“Okay,” he says.

-

It was one of those rare quiet days for them.

Farlan was leaning over the railings, smoking his cigarettes in lazy puffs as he watched the stream of pedestrian traffic below. Behind him, Levi stepped out onto the balcony, a cup of tea in his hand. He brought his free hand up to shield his eyes from the sun, squinting at the sudden brightness.

“Someday, I’ll get us out of here, Levi.” Farlan wasn’t looking at him but Levi could see the smile on his face, his gaze faraway, somewhere that wasn’t here. “You trust me, don’t you?”

Levi walked up to him, leaned over to take a drag of the cigarette hanging loosely between Farlan’s fingers. It tasted of cloves and ash and when the smoke left Levi’s lips, they curled and dissipated into thin air, like empty promises.

-

When Levi comes home covered in someone else’s blood, Erwin’s only reaction is to immediately warm up the shower water. No words are exchanged.

Levi steps out of the bathroom an hour later. His skin is marred by red patches from scrubbing it raw. At the door, Erwin is already waiting with a clean change of clothes for him and Levi accepts them from his hands, staring at them, unable to look at Erwin in the eyes.

Eventually Levi says, “I guess you’ve figured out that I don’t really work at Mitras.” He studies the creases of his night shirt and adds, “I’m sorry for lying,” and means it.

Above him, Erwin huffs out a soft laughter, complacent in its tone. “Well, I didn’t believe you the first time.”

Levi isn’t surprised by this admission—it isn’t like he carries himself to be someone who only spends his life peacefully amongst beloved books. Anyone who passes him in the streets will undoubtedly find something unsettling about him but they won’t be able to explain why. For as long as Levi can remember, this is how it’s always been; but in this moment—as he stares down at his thumbnails where they dig into neatly folded clothes and seeing traces of blood that aren’t even there anymore—he has never felt more ashamed.

“What do you think of me now?” he eventually asks, voice hushed and tight in his throat. “Now that you know my line of work?”

“Nothing.” Erwin’s response was immediate, certain. “You’re still my owner.”

When Levi looks up, he sees the familiar curve of Erwin’s smile, unchanged from that first instance that made Levi look away. This time he doesn’t though and like a single magnitude earthquake, something inside Levi shifts: unnoticed, unheard, but there all the same.

-

Sometime in April, Levi accidentally kills his android during his first maintenance tune-up.

“Shit,” Levi curses as Erwin’s head lolls forward. “Great.”

He tinkers around the nape of Erwin’s neck for a while longer, trying to maneuver the tiny screwdriver between his two fingers. He ultimately gives up when Erwin remains immobile on the floor. At a loss of what to do, he reluctantly makes a phone call.

An hour later, Hange walks into his apartment with a concerned looking man holding a large duffel bag following quickly at her feet. Levi eventually concludes that he is Moblit, her android.

Levi hovers by the pair, observing and generally feeling helpless. “So, what the hell is wrong with him?”

“Well,” Hange begins, gesturing to Moblit to hand her a screw. “Nothing really. I’m just tightening up some loose wires first but...you accidentally turned off the interior switch.” She then points to a miniscule red tab barely visible underneath the layers of wires and laughs at Levi’s dumbfounded expression.

 

The following week, Levi returns from Mitras with a book. He hands it to Erwin.

“This is quite a long book,” Erwin comments, flipping through the pages. “Are you going away for a job?”

“No,” Levi says. “I guess it’s an apology for almost killing you.”

“No need to be sorry,” Erwin assures. “It’s not so easy to kill me.”

At that, Levi offers a small smile.

“Funny you say that. A commander in the book said the same thing.”

-

After a job, Levi finds himself trashed at a bar and letting some desperate man try to talk him into sleeping with him.

Ten drinks later, Levi is half-considering the offer when he feels a light tap on his shoulder.

Blending in with the rest of the patrons is Erwin.

A million thoughts swim in Levi’s head but he settles on slurring out, “Who the hell told you to leave the house? I didn’t give you permission.” He ignores the man next to him giving them odd glances. “Did you at least lock the door?”

“Yes,” Erwin says, sounding amused. “Now let’s go.”

“You’re no fun…” Levi complains but allows himself to be dragged out by his elbow.

The effect of alcohol exacerbates the moment Levi starts moving and he barely remembers the walk home. When they make it back, Erwin guides a stumbling Levi who collapses face-down onto the bed before kneeling down to take off Levi’s shoes.

“It was an awful job,” Levi mumbles incoherently into the bedcovers.

“I know,” Erwin consoles softly. Levi doesn’t hear him.

“I’m trying my best, Isabel. I’m still...”

He falls asleep, unable to finish his thoughts.

 

In the morning, Levi wakes up to a cool bottle of water by his bedside. From the kitchen, he smells curry rice cooking and hears Erwin joking with Nifa who replies back in a series of agitated chirps. Levi chuckles, momentarily forgetting the night before, and stays in bed until Erwin comes to wake him up.

-

In August, Levi catches one of those inexplicable summer flus and spends the entire day miserable in bed.

“I rarely get sick,” Levi explains weakly as Erwin tries to feed him more chicken soup. “I’ll be fine. Just get me more tea.”

“But you have to eat,” Erwin reprimands. “Otherwise your body will take longer to heal.”

“Fuck you,” Levi mutters and chokes down another few spoonfuls before Erwin’s watchful gaze.

That night, as Levi lies in a fetal position shivering from a fever, he feels the bed sink behind him.

“What—” And suddenly, a warm body is pressing up against his back, a familiar arm snaking its way around his waist. Levi freezes, wondering if this is some fever-induced hallucination.

When he manages to find his voice, he calmly asks, “What are you doing?”

“I’m acting as your body heater for the night,” Erwin responds lightly as if this is an everyday occurrence.

“Is this a joke?”

“No?” Erwin sounds baffled. “It’s one of our functions.”

Levi honestly doesn’t know what to say to that so he just broods silently and slowly warms off his chills.

He’s just starting to nod off when Erwin speaks up behind him.

“What do you exactly do at your jobs?”

Levi can choose not to answer. Erwin would let him too. But something inside him is threatening to burst, like having one foot out of a closet full of skeletons and the weight of it ready to break through the doors—and he’s wide awake again, staring into the darkness and remembering.

“It’s not something I am proud of,” he starts to say eventually. Like a disclaimer.

“I owe some favors but I’ll get out one day,” he continues, forcing his voice to be neutral. “I’m who they call when they need to get rid of some people and make sure no one finds out about it.”

He wrings the sheets between his fingers until his knuckles turn taut and pale. It feels harsh, so much more real, saying it out loud.

“My official title is a cleaner. But it’s just a bunch of bullshit trying to sugarcoat the truth that I’m nothing but a murderer. Those I’ve killed—” And he swallows thickly, choking on the word. “They were all terrible people. Pigs of the black market. Vile men who abused their powers. But a lot of them had families who loved them too, you know?”

He thinks of Isabel and Farlan and wants to die.

“If I were those family members, I would want me dead too.”

Feeling suddenly drained, Levi closes his eyes and anxiously waits for Erwin to break the unbearable silence.

“Are you good at it?” Erwin asks eventually.

“Yes,” Levi answers quietly. “I am.”

After a beat, Erwin muses, “I guess we are both more alike than we’d thought. We both clean and we’re good at it.”

Levi allows himself a hollow laughter. “I guess.”

Behind him, Erwin shifts his weight, bringing Levi closer to him—like someone would when they are trying to comfort the other.

“Is this temperature okay?” Erwin asks gently, his voice too close.

“Yeah,” Levi lies. It’s too hot but for some reason, he just wants to be held tonight.

 

He sweats through a fitful sleep. But some time during the night, he’s moved around, his head tucked against the curve of Erwin’s shoulder; and when he wakes, he watches the way Erwin’s chest doesn’t rise and fall like his own, and feels the weight of Erwin’s hand where it rests against the small of his back.

(H _ow strange is it_ , Levi thought just before falling asleep. That he would confess his darkest secret and the only thing Erwin had learned from it was what made them alike.)

-

Erwin is quietly observing Levi’s precarious attempt of curry rice.

“To be honest, I’m quite amazed you haven’t managed to hurt yourself yet.”

“Don’t push it,” Levi warns, squinting through burning eyes as he cuts the onions into uneven dices. “I’m still paying you off in installments, you know.”

Suddenly Erwin laughs like Levi’s made the funniest joke and the deep, rich sound vibrates throughout their small kitchen. Levi’s hand finally does slip in that one distracted second and the knife slices past the onions into his knuckles; and the blood drips off the countertop, landing on Erwin’s feet.

-

Still not confident enough to complete a tune up himself, Levi brings Erwin to Hange.

This time, Hange joins Levi in spectating by the kitchen counter, allowing Moblit to carry out the process alone. They are holding a pleasant conversation over some tea when Levi asks her if Erwin can feel real emotions.

“Perhaps to an extent, yes,” Hange states with a hesitant but affirmative nod. “His receptors are a complex set of wires meant to gather surrounding data and assess them to portray the proper—quote on quote—emotion that we see. For example, an android being reprimanded for a poor job will be able to pick up elements from the current situation, such as facial expressions or tone of voice, and then be able to convey guilt, sadness or even stubbornness. The variable being the programmed personality of the android, of course. If you think about it, it’s not much different from us humans.”

Needless to say, Levi knows all of this; every owner knows this information. But he feels it is the only segue into what he really means to ask: “What about love? Can he love?”

“Love,” Hange echoes, her voice faraway. “Love is a very complicated emotion. Can you even call love an emotion though? It’s something far too complex for many humans, let alone the most advanced droids.” She then turns to him, wistfully concluding, “So no, androids cannot love. They can show affection, portray attachment and understand attraction at a basic level, but it’s impossible for them to actually fall in love.”

The conversation ends there and the tea sits lukewarm and forgotten in Levi’s hand. He watches Moblit carefully work on Erwin’s nape and listens to the muffled white noise of their conversation. He absently wonders what they are talking about.

“It’s okay to fall in love with your android, Levi,” Hange adds gently, hushed and out of earshot from their droids. “Many people have. But one must also be aware that they will never be able to truly reciprocate it.”

“I was just curious, Hange; I’m not in love with him,” he clarifies, but is alarmed to find that he sounds unsure.  
-

Nifa rusts out at the turn of winter, spinning herself to her inevitable hot-wired death. And while Levi has been expecting this day for some time now, it doesn’t make it any less devastating.

They bury her in a small, hidden corner of the garden behind the apartment. It’s technically illegal as machines of all kinds are supposed to be disposed of properly at a recycling center but Levi doesn’t have the heart to do so in this case.

“It’s just that she’s been with me for over ten years, you know?”

“If you think about it, that’s a long time for this model,” Erwin consoles. “She had a good run.”

And she had. But for Levi, losing Nifa was also losing his last connection to a time when Isabel was alive; and before Farlan tried to be a hero—a tangible, almost-living proof of better days. It’s an odd feeling; one he isn’t sure how to handle so he spends the rest of the day in a daze, only truly accepting the reality that she is gone when he’s lying in bed later that night.

“I guess it’s just the two of us now,” Levi says. His eyes have long adjusted to the dark and he sees Erwin nod in his peripherals. They lay in solemn silence, in contemplation.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Erwin asks him, “Do you want me to read you a book?”

“Why?” Levi turns to his side and meets Erwin’s gaze on the other side of the room. “I’m not a child.”

“I don’t like it when you’re sad,” he replies matter of factly. “You are often unhappy but reading seems to ease that.”

Levi smiles a little at that. “I must be so insufferable, don’t I? Being so miserable all the time.”

“Not at all. You’re just human, Levi.”

“You know you’re the only one who’s told me that? That I’m human?” Levi speaks softly, as if confessing a deep-rooted secret. “I’ve been called everything but that up until now.”

“Then I’ll be the first,” Erwin responds and his voice is just as hushed.

-

On New Years Eve as the clock hits midnight, Erwin turns to Levi and kisses him.

For a long surreal few seconds, Levi leans into the kiss, closing his eyes as he feels soft lips press dryly against his own. He’s faintly aware of his hand reaching up for Erwin when he suddenly realizes what is happening and he’s recoiling; pushing Erwin away with such force that they both fall back on opposite ends of the couch.

The frenzied hum of the television’s new year crowd fills the room.

“Why did you do that?” Levi asks tightly, feeling as if he’s about to break into a million pieces and not knowing why.

“I don’t know.” Erwin tilts his head slightly, curiously. “I guess I just wanted to see how it was; what all those people do.”

Barely holding it together, Levi quietly pleads, “Don’t ever do that again.”

Erwin holds his gaze before turning his head to look out the window. After a long moment, he simply says, “Okay.”

They start the new year sitting across from each other and listening to the fireworks outside, the distance between them expansive and overwhelming like the sea.

-

His head rested upon Farlan’s lap as he looked past the curve of the other’s jaw and up into the constellations above.

“What I would give to not feel anything right now,” Farlan said.

“Then don’t,” Levi responded, seeing nothing. “Just don’t.”

In his right hand were flowers for Isabel’s grave but he didn’t feel them there at all.

-

He wakes up one morning, not remembering falling asleep. The covers are over him and tucking him into the bed. The book that Erwin has been reading to him the night before is folded neatly on his nightstand table, a bookmark peeking out between the pages.

Turning over in his bed, he sees Erwin out on the balcony hanging the laundry. In the morning sunlight, his figure is haloed and he stands there like an untouchable lover—a flame within arm’s reach.

Rarely does Levi remember his dreams. But this time, he remembers it all: a three-worded confession, the soft tilt of Erwin’s head and the blank stare he gets in return.

-

When an android is killed, there are none of the pretentious sparks or the garish noises the movies often make it out to be.

This is how you kill an android—a sudden and silent death with no one around to witness it but the killer himself. A last resort. A final wish.

When Levi returns home, Erwin is lying down on his couch. He’s charging and his expression is peaceful and carefree. He goes over to sit down on the edge of the armrest and brushes Erwin’s hair to one side, his hand staying there long after Erwin has opened his eyes.

“Everything okay, Levi?” he asks. His tone makes Levi want to burn everything.

Instead, he just says, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” he asks but Levi doesn’t answer.

In his own bed, Levi closes his eyes but he can still see her’s—the light fading from behind them, the dip of her head as she willingly lets him slice through the circuits; the way she falls down, down, down onto her owner’s cold and unmoving chest.

-

Levi brings the stack of novels to the front desk and notices the owner, Pixis, reading a book. He skims the title:

_Falling in Love With Your Android: Coping and Acceptance_

Before Levi can slide his gaze away, Pixis catches him looking and he smiles, wan but gentle; he says: “Her name is Anka.”

Levi just nods curtly—it’s none of his business and he doesn’t want to burden the man with half-hearted sympathies. But Pixis continues anyway.

“It’s a very helpful book. I’ve come to terms with it,” he says. “The two of us will just enjoy life until I pass away from old age.” He then closes the book and offers it to Levi. “Would you like to read it? I understand you are an owner yourself. It’s an interesting read whether or not it applies to you.”

Declining the offer, Levi buys his books. Only after he leaves the shop does he realize that he doesn’t want to come to terms with it like Pixis has.

-

They had a fight. It was a horrid, useless argument with Isabel sitting up for once on her bed and Levi standing by her, fists clenched inside his pockets.

“None of this is your fault, Levi,” she pleaded tightly, desperately. “You need to stop blaming yourself for any of this. None of us knew what would happen if it didn’t work.”

She started coughing—her body curling up violently and making her look smaller than she already was—and Levi could only watch helplessly. He wanted to take back the last few weeks; wanted nothing more than to be in her place instead. When she looked up and saw his hollow expression, her face crumpled, finally surrendering after trying to be so strong.

“I can’t bear to think you will choose to live full of regret, not forgiving yourself.” She was crying now and she looked so, so tired, and her lips stained impossibly red. “When I’m gone, would you at least try? Please tell me you will try.”

“I’ll try,” he promised. He reached down and wiped away her tears—the blood spilling past her lips—and felt fissures inside of him. “Just for you, I will try.”

-

His skin clings onto the scent of strong alcohol and cologne that doesn’t belong to him, but he’s the only one who can smell it.

Below him, Erwin looks up at Levi, his gaze questioning and curious as Levi straddles him on the couch where he’s been laying, the cord stretching out from behind his head and into the outlet below.

“Does it hurt, Erwin?” His voice is gentle and calm unlike the way his fingers dig into bare, synthetic skin. They tremble under the strain as he tries harder and harder to break it and doesn’t—can’t. But still, he tries anyway.

“Am I hurting you?”

“I can feel the pressure,” Erwin replies. “I know it’s supposed to hurt because my sensors tell me it should but no, it doesn’t hurt.”

He then looks at Levi, brows creased, bemused. “But...why are you hurting me?”

Levi lifts his fingers off Erwin then, his rage dissipating almost as quickly as it came. He watches deep crescent shaped grooves smooth out and disappear from resilient material, gone without a trace.

“I don’t know,” he eventually admits. “I guess I just wanted you to feel.”

“But I do feel, Levi.”

Levi lays his forehead against Erwin’s chest, suddenly finding it hard to breathe. And he does know.

He says, “Not the way I want you to.”

He says, “Sometimes, I just want you to bleed.”

-

One night, Levi wakes up in a cold sweat, the nightmare still vivid and horrible before his wide, open eyes.

He stays up all night, staring at the wall in front of him and feeling completely alone even with Erwin only a few feet away from him. But these nightmares come frequently and Levi can fight them off by morning, and so he waits and waits and waits for the images to recede.

This time, he’s still waiting when the sun comes up.

He doesn’t remember saying it. But he does hear himself say it—the way he calls for Erwin hoarsely, sounding small, like a child; the feeble tone of his voice when he asks Erwin to come and hold him.

And he asks him again the night after.

And the night after that.

And thereafter.

Until Levi no longer has to ask because Erwin lets Levi sink into his weight as he lies down on the bed with him each night, allowing Levi to fold himself into the contours of Erwin’s body—the only place he feels safe and wanted and human after all these years.

-

Levi was the first to hear about it: the surfacing rumors about a new drug claiming to cure terminal illnesses.

The chances of success was only 5%, and while it could take years to reach a favorable outcome, it was already being sold on the black market.

And for those who were desperate enough, 5% was in their favor.

As Levi and Farlan bit their thumbs and marked their blood on the contract sealing their fate, Isabel was all that was on their minds.

-

“You’ve been quiet since you’ve returned from your job. Are you alright?”

Levi breathes slowly, evenly, as he lays his head on Erwin’s chest. He stares blankly at the white wall, barely grounded by Erwin’s finger carding through the limp strands of his hair.

“It’s over, Erwin,” he says quietly.

“What is, Levi?”

“I killed him,” he replies tonelessly. “I had a chance today and I took it and now he’s gone.”

“I see,” Erwin says, already knowing who. He brings up his other arm around in an embrace and Levi lets him. They lie still like that until Levi is ready to speak again.

“I often think about a life where I brushed off those rumors and Isabel and I would have been able to spend her last days in bittersweet peace,” he says numbly. “Farlan would still be here too, being my annoying other half.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Levi.”

“I know,” he says. “I know if Kenny had chosen to tell me the side effects, I would have never agreed to it and none of this would have ever happened. I know.

Outside the birds are starting to chirp.

“So why don’t I feel satisfied, Erwin? I don’t feel satisfied at all,” Levi says, his voice breaking halfway. “Where’s my closure? I’ve been waiting all day for this damn guilt to disappear and it’s still here.”

He then adds, “I don’t know what I feel.”

“Then don’t feel,” Erwin replies gently. “Just let it be.”

Levi closes his eyes and presses his cheek into the threadbare cotton of Erwin’s shirt. He feels a growing dampness there and isn’t sure why.

“Just like you?” Levi whispers into the tiny space between them.

“Just like me.”

-

“You sure you can do this by yourself? Should I be concerned?”

“Relax, I think I have the hang of it by now.”

“Think?”

Levi ignores Erwin and tightens the screws around each set of circuits like he’s seen Hange and Moblit do many times before. As he works slowly, Levi sees the miniscule red tab barely hidden between the lines of wires. His screwdriver hovers precariously over it.

“You trust me, don’t you?” Levi asks softly.

“I always do.”

They continue in comfortable silence. But as they are finishing up, Erwin’s head falls forward when Levi hits the switch.

There’s no one to witness it: the way Levi leans down and rests his forehead against the whorl of Erwin’s hair; how he moves down to press his lips against Erwin’s exposed nape—the closest thing an android has to his heart—and tastes metal, tastes blood; the way Levi shuts his eyes, letting himself have this one selfish moment.

“I love you,” he finally, _finally_ , allows himself to say, just once—twice. “I love you so much.”

It will be the last time he says it.

He stays there, motionless and hurting, and only when he’s ready to move on, he picks up his tools again.

-

Levi finally reads the book that Pixis had offered him long ago.

He reads it in one go, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a secluded corner in the store, alone.

It’s dark outside by the time he finishes and when he returns it to the front desk, Pixis asks him if he would like to purchase it. Levi politely declines.

When he returns home, Erwin is making curry rice like he knew Levi had been craving it all week. He has a bit of sauce splattered on his cheek and Levi can’t help but wonder if Erwin’s really as careless as he seems sometimes or if it was all programmed to make a robot seem more human. He will probably never find out and he doesn’t care.

Because the truth is, no matter how many times he will reread Pixis’ book or ponder over these kinds of things, it still won’t change the fact that Levi is in love with Erwin

and how they are learning to clean around the growing piles of well-loved novels in their home

and the way Erwin jokes about his arm falling asleep after a night of Levi sleeping on it

and the short distance it takes for Levi to walk over to Erwin with a napkin and wipe away the stain.

”You can be surprisingly messy, you know that?” Levi says fondly with a look of disapproval.

Erwin laughs, wiping at his cleaned cheek. “Sorry. Hey you want to watch a movie tonight?”

“Why not. Guess we need a change from the books.”

So they curl up on the couch in front of the TV and Levi lets Erwin choose this time around. He settles on a campy horror film and they spend the rest of the night making fun of the awful plot.

-

“When I die of old age, what will you do? Would you find a new owner?”

They lie together in bed their usual distance apart, talking about nothing in particular to pass the hours until morning. Apparently insomnia isn’t something that just goes away easily, even after all this time.

“What makes you think I’ll last as long as you?” Erwin asks solemnly. “Our wires get all hot and rusted; if anything, I’ll croak before you do.”

At Levi’s glare, Erwin reaches over to press his thumb against the wrinkle between his brows, smoothing it out. His voice is soft as he says, “All my memories are with you, Levi. I can’t imagine finding someone else.”

That makes Levi smile. He quips, “Well, that’s romantic.”

Erwin returns the smile but it isn’t long before he gets serious again.

“Do you believe in the afterlife?”

“Aren’t you full of strange inquiries today.”

Levi ponders over Erwin’s question before ultimately replying, “No. I don’t believe there is one.” It isn’t a comforting thought but it is what he believes.

“I do,” Erwin says suddenly. When Levi turns to look at him curiously, he continues. “I think there’s an afterlife and that’s where you’ll go while I stay behind, waiting to turn into scraps. It’s a strange thought.”

“Yeah, it is.” Theres a long, heavy silence before Levi reaches over to feel Erwin’s forehead and half-jokes, “Are you sick? Are you dying on me as we speak?”

Erwin laughs, swatting Levi’s hand away—“It’s nothing. Just something I think about.”—and lets the topic go.

 

But later into an ungodly hour of the night, Erwin confesses something to Levi, whispering it like a long-kept secret.

“Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t like this.”

“Like what?” Levi asks half-listening. He rubs his eyes, exhausted.

“You know. A robot. An android. Whatever you humans call it.”

Levi turns to his side then to look at Erwin. He’s gazing up at the ceiling, brows knitted.

“Why?” Levi manages to ask.

Erwin doesn’t say anything for a long, long time and Levi almost lets it go, assuming it’s another one of his many random question. But Erwin eventually turns to Levi and with an unreadable look on his face, he says, “I wonder if there’s something wrong with me...”

He hesitates before going on. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s normal for me to want so badly to fall in love with you.”

In the silence that follows, Levi hears nothing but his own heartbeat. He’s looking into Erwin’s eyes and he can’t blink, can’t even breathe—

“What are you saying, Erwin?” His voice sounds like it’s underwater. “What do you mean?”

“I know I can’t feel true emotions,” Erwin replies tentatively. “And that my sensors are the ones telling me that there are things I should be feeling, things I should be responding to.”

Erwin’s staring back at the ceiling now, his gaze faraway. “But there are also things that do come naturally to me, somehow. I’m aware of the things that I want and what I want most is to be able to fall in love with you. You know, like the beautiful kind I read about in the books.”

When Levi doesn’t say anything, Erwin smiles wryly and sighs. “Sorry, I can’t really explain it.”

Levi asks quietly, “You really want to love me?”

“Yes, I do."

They lie on their sides in the quiet, in the wake of a confession. And when Erwin speaks up again, this time, he sounds uncertain.

“Do you think I’ll be able to one day?” he asks.

“Maybe,” Levi answers and he’s unable to keep the hope out of his voice. “Maybe one day.”

Hiding his smile, he rolls over to embrace Erwin who naturally holds him back. He closes his eyes.

“But for now, let’s try and get some sleep.”

And together, they wait for the sun to rise.

 

 

-

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a rough draft of this ages ago and actually made Levi the android. It was a light-hearted comedy with Erwin owning an insufferable cleaning robot named Levi. But over time as the new SNK chapters came out, I've come to realize that Levi is far more emotional than he initially seemed—and that Erwin is much more emotionally complex as a character. So that idea was scrapped and I started over. It took me a while but eventually this thing was born. Hope you enjoyed reading it.
> 
> It's been over a year since my last written work here. I'm glad I was able to squeeze in one new fic before 2014 is over. To my old readers reading this, thanks for sticking around! To my new readers, I hope you like what you see. 2015 is right around the corner and hopefully I will be able to find time to write—I've definitely missed it.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Happy holidays and see you all in the new year!


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